a16z SPEEDRUN

Entrepreneur FirstMega

Finance

$600K+ in credits, plus up to $250K investment

Entrepreneur First is a talent investor that backs individuals before they have a company or a cofounder. Its own homepage states the program includes an equity-free grant while you are still ideating, up to $250K investment once you form a company, up to $5M in follow-on through later rounds with support to Series B, and office space for nine months in central London, Bangalore and San Francisco. The same page lists over $600K in credits: $350K in Azure, plus $250K+ from OpenAI, Anthropic, GitHub, PostHog, Datadog, ElevenLabs and others. The credits are not self-serve, they arrive only with acceptance into a cohort, and EF takes equity once a company is formed.

TechstarsMega

Finance

$220,000 investment ($20K CEA + $200K uncapped MFN SAFE)

Techstars runs three-month mentorship-driven accelerator programs and invests $220,000 in each company it accepts. The investment is $20,000 through a Post-Money Convertible Equity Agreement that converts to 5% common stock, plus a $200,000 uncapped MFN SAFE. There is no monetary fee to join, so the cost is the 5% common stock plus the future conversion of the SAFE. Programs in Asia-Pacific offer a $100,000 uncapped MFN SAFE instead of $200,000, for a $120,000 total.

StartmateMega

Finance

AUD $120,000 investment at a $1.5m post-money cap

Startmate is an Australia and New Zealand accelerator that invests AUD $120,000 in every company it accepts. Founders who have not raised before take the money at a AUD $1.5m post-money valuation; teams that have already raised AUD $250,000 or more from VCs or angels get their last round's valuation matched instead. The program runs 12 weeks from January 25 to April 29, 2027, hybrid, with three in-person weeks in Australia and access to a network Startmate puts at 4,000+ ANZ founders, operators and investors. This is equity capital rather than credits, so accepting it dilutes your cap table.